The City University Graduate Media Network is an interdisciplinary initiative formed in 2010 by PhD students in the Sociology Department and the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City University London. We are interested in media, its inner workings, and its relationship with society. The group provides a platform for City University London graduate students to share their work through social media and by presenting and participating in monthly meetings.

The network includes:

Alex Antoniou
PhD student, City Law School
Contact: Alex.Antoniou.1@city.ac.uk
Research interests: Obscenity legislation, pornography and free speech, sexual portrayals and explicitness in print advertising, as well as in the relationship between popular culture and commerce.

Kurt Beers
PhD research student, Sociology Department
Contact: kurtbeers@gmail.com
Research interests: Media, symbolic and substantive communicative factors, international relations/affairs and politics.

Valerie Belair-Gagnon
PhD research student, Sociology Department
Contact: @valeriebgagnon on Twitter / belairgagnon.v@gmail.com
Blog: http://valeriebelairgagnon.tumblr.com/
Research interests: Journalism, social media, new media, international news
Other interests: International communication, organizational changes in media, ethnography, interviews.

Zeena Feldman
PhD research student, Centre for Cultural Policy and Management
Contact: zinaida.feldman.1@city.ac.uk
Research interests: Social network sites, transnational media and communication, friendship, hospitality, cosmopolitanism, belonging, globalisation, community.

Damien Lanfrey
PhD research student and lecturer, Sociology Department
Contact: @damienlanfrey on Twitter / dlanfrey@gmail.com
Web: www.damienlanfrey.net
Research interests: Collective action, online activism and advocacy, information technology and organizational change, open data, sociology of technology, e-democracy, Webometrics, technologies for social change, public engagement.

Sam McIntosh
PhD research student, Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism
Research assistant, Law, Terrorism and the Right to Know, School of Law, University of Reading
Contact: @sammc123 on Twitter / sam.mcintosh.1@city.ac.uk
Research interests [more here]: Domestic and international human rights law; deaths in custody; open justice and democratic accountability.

Natalie Peck
PhD student, Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism
Contact: @nataliepeck
Research interests: UK privacy law and the representation of “public figures”.

Judith Townend
PhD research student, Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism
Contact: @jtownend on Twitter / jt.townend@gmail.com
Blog: http://meejalaw.com / http://jtownend.com
Research interests [more here]: Publication processes, injunctions, English defamation/privacy law, legal data, open justice, online publishing and blogging, media ethics and accountability.

Rebecca Wells
PhD research student, Centre for Food Policy and Department of Journalism. Former BBC radio producer.
Contact:Rebecca.Wells.1@city.ac.uk / @wellsrebecca on Twitter
Research interests: Food in the UK media, news media reporting of emerging research on nutrition and cancer prevention, food marketing, food and health inequalities.